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End computer rage with a manual that makes sense

By Emma Young in Sydney

FINDING out that your software manual has been written by a monosyllabic nerd and then badly translated into English is not much fun, especially if you are desperately trying to meet an urgent deadline.

But there is hope on the horizon. The answer to unintelligible manuals is to use even more software. At least, that’s the solution of engineers at the Intelligent Interaction Technology arm of Australia’s national research organisation, CSIRO, in North Ryde, New South Wales. They hope to revolutionise the standard of instruction manuals by monitoring how people actually use the software and …